


break all the rules!

by permutative



Category: ENHYPEN (Band), TOMORROW X TOGETHER | TXT (Korea Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gay Chicken, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:35:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28324674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/permutative/pseuds/permutative
Summary: Sunoo beats him to the chase. “Sunghoon-hyung,” Sunoo says, reproaching. He raises an eyebrow. “If you refuse, doesn’t that mean you forfeit?” He turns to Kai. “Right, Kai-hyung?”“Uh… right,” Kai says, hesitant. He offers Sunghoon a helpless shrug in reply. Rules are rules, even in a game of chicken. Especially in a game of chicken.(or: kai deals with his crush on sunoo while txtha play gay chicken, and kind of loses his mind in the process. it's fine though)
Relationships: Huening Kai/Kim Sunoo
Comments: 10
Kudos: 55
Collections: WIP OLYMPICS: WINTER 2020/21





	break all the rules!

**Author's Note:**

> set in 2021. bighit decides to shove txt maknae line, enhypen hyung line, and kim sunoo (!!) into one subunit, kind of like super-m. does this make sense? of course not! just go with it for the story tho
> 
> posted under a side-account for, like, three hours. [1/18/21: switched the title from "let me in (20 cube?)" to "break all the rules!"

From the way Sunoo saunters into the kitchen Kai already knows he’s looking for trouble. Sunghoon, who’s sitting across from him at the kitchen counter, automatically tenses, spine turned ramrod straight. Everyone’s been a bit on edge these days.

Sunoo holds up a pink plastic package of Pocky, his smile verging on terrifyingly bright, before turning to Sunghoon and asking, “Wanna try the Pocky challenge?”

“The Pocky _what?_ ” Sunghoon’s eyes widen, panicked. From the way he exchanges a horrified glance with Kai, it’s clear he knows exactly what it entails. “Sunoo-yah, are you sure—why don’t you ask _Kai—_ ”

“Hey,” Kai interjects weakly, hoping to defend his honor.

Sunoo beats him to the chase. “Sunghoon-hyung,” Sunoo says, reproaching. He raises an eyebrow. “If you refuse, doesn’t that mean you forfeit?” He turns to Kai. “Right, Kai-hyung?”

“Uh… right,” Kai says, hesitant. He offers Sunghoon a helpless shrug in reply. Rules are rules, even in a game of chicken. Especially in a game of chicken. Sunghoon’s usually the best at following them regardless.

After that, it’s a lost cause: Kai doesn’t need to watch to know that Sunoo—aged nineteen, armed with nothing but overabundant charm, quiet confidence, and a Peripera pink smile—will beat out Sunghoon, any day.

He leaves the kitchen soon after. There’s a shaky, dark feeling twisting in his gut, like experiencing a rollercoaster ride’s terrible aftereffects. The sight of Sunoo leaning close to Sunghoon, their mouths separated by mere centimeters of a Pocky stick, burns in his mind.

Everyone’s been a bit on edge these days, and Kai’s no exception.

(Look: how would _you_ feel if your crush was currently annihilating all the competition in some weird teenage-boy bonding ritual that Kai had, like, clearly missed out on while he was listening to Soobin’s Bebe Rexha playlist at the age of sixteen?)

🦊🐧🦊🐧🦊🐧

Jake had been the one to mention it—some Australian game he’d played back in high school, _just for laughs,_ he had said—but Kai blames Taehyun for it all. For while Jake had suggested gay chicken as a form of “subunit bonding,” no one seriously considered it. No, it had been _Taehyun_ who convinced the others, who had turned to look at Kai and said, calm and cool: “that sounds like a pretty good idea, actually.”

(Kai, at the time, took one look at Kim Sunoo—perhaps the only person in the room he wished would flirt with him—and figured he wasn’t prepared for this. Twenty years old, barely out of high school, he didn’t know what he was doing)

It didn’t take long for the remaining competition to get whittled into half. Jay, the last to agree (“What, you think you’re going to lose?” Heeseung said while goading him to join, raising an eyebrow) had been the first to drop out. He’d been rendered flustered by a simple serenade: Heeseung caressing the side of Jay’s face as he sang _I’ll be your boyfriend_ with a straight face. Heeseung, after all, is the king of fanservice, and Jay—well. He’s Jay.

For Beomgyu, all it had taken was Taehyun sliding his hand up Beomgyu’s thigh for him to tap out.

(”Have you _seen_ how dangerous his arms are?” Beomgyu whispers dramatically when he’s letting Heeseung in on all the horrid details. “I thought he was trying to kill me.” Kai pretends to not overhear)

Meanwhile, Jake seems like a pretty strong contender at first. He holds out when Heeseung tries to fanservice him with “Let Me In (20 Cube),” unexpectedly enough. But then Sunoo slides an arm over Jake’s shoulder while they’re watching _Tenet,_ leaning in so that his mouth brushes against the outer shell of Jake’s ear, and Jake immediately cringes away, giggling with nervous laughter.

Now Sunghoon’s out, too, just leaving four of them left. Scratch that, actually just three:

“Heeseung-hyung lost,” Taehyun announces at dinner, impassive. Heeseung, sitting beside him, doesn’t say anything, just biting aggressively into his salad instead.

Sunoo claps, bright as always. The rest of the Enhypen members look vaguely dumbfounded. Sunghoon shakes his head in disbelief; Jay blinks, blank-faced.

“So. What happened?” Jake asks, looking between Heeseung—pink-cheeked and quieter than normal—and Taehyun, who’s—wait, why is he looking at Kai?

Unfortunately, no one ever really finds out how Heeseung got taken out of the running.

(Besides Beomgyu, of course, who seems to be convinced that Taehyun physically tackled Heeseung into giving in.

“He’s scary, I tell you,” Beomgyu says, licking his lips. Personally, Kai finds the eager glint in Beomgyu’s eyes even more terrifying)

🦊🐧🦊🐧🦊🐧

Kai isn’t stupid, even if he once admitted on V Live to “emptying his mind” after he debuted. Truly, he _wishes_ he could clear out all his thoughts of this. But all while his fellow bandmates and the other Enhypen members dance around each other, eager to push themselves to the edge of what they can tolerate, Kai can’t help but wonder:

1\. Well, why hasn’t Kai been targeted yet? He’s much easier to fluster than Heeseung, more prone to nervous laughter than Sunghoon. He expected Sunoo to come for him first, really, given how close they’ve gotten while preparing for this comeback. But instead, Sunoo had ignored him in favor of Jake (Jake.), all their interactions strictly platonic.

Even now, Sunoo has his attention on Taehyun. The last attempt had ended in a stalemate, as far as Kai heard: Jay’s shrieks of surprise when he walked in on them had, apparently, startled them out of concentration.

(As for what had caused Jay to freak out so badly when he entered Taehyun’s room, Kai doesn’t ask. Sometimes ignorance is bliss)

2\. Why does Taehyun keep looking over at him like he should _do_ something?

🦊🐧🦊🐧🦊🐧

He asks Taehyun about it after practice, waiting until all the other members stream out the door before he pops the question.

“Look,” Taehyun tells him, as direct as always. He gives Kai the same patient, slightly exasperated look that Kai has come to associate with asking Taehyun for homework help back in high school. “If you don’t realize it yourself, then there’s no point.”

Go figure. So Kai does what he had done while struggling through math problems, as well: ask Soobin for guidance, instead. Even if it’s pretty likely he’ll end up more confused in the process.

Okay, maybe Kai’s being a bit unfair. Soobin had been pretty helpful that one time he was struggling with integrals. But Soobin has always been tight-lipped about relationships and flirting.

(Kai had already guessed Soobin was gay, like him, but he only _really_ learned the truth when he found out Soobin had a boyfriend through his sudden obsession with Car, the Garden songs. Seriously: more than four years of friendship, and that’s what Kai got)

🦊🐧🦊🐧🦊🐧

Either way, he calls Soobin later that night. It makes Kai realize that the past couple of weeks—simply exchanging text messages instead of talking aloud, still unused to the motions of texting because they’ve always just _been_ beside each other—has been the longest time they’ve spent apart since he met Soobin at fifteen.

Soobin states the obvious. _“This doesn’t sound like normal team bonding,”_ he says.

Kai hesitates, kicking his legs out across his bed. “Well, we _have_ gotten closer,” he says carefully. Taehyun has become fast friends with Sunghoon, both of them taking on the lead during practices; Beomgyu seems grateful to find someone his age in Heeseung.

 _“If you say so, Kai-yah,”_ Soobin replies. He pauses, then adds: _“Why don’t you just forfeit?”_

Kai sighs. “I can’t forfeit if neither of them targets me, right?”

Soobin hums in agreement. _“Sunoo. He’s the one who did the Pocky challenge, right?”_

“Yeah.”

There’s silence for a couple of moments. _“Be honest,”_ Soobin says slowly. _“What would—what would you do if Sunoo_ did _approach you?”_

Kai thinks about it. Remembers all the small things he’s messaged Soobin about Sunoo: _i think you two would get along~_ after Kai first met him, _he likes april and itzy just like you hyung ^^_ once Kai actually talked to him, _he’s so cute >3< what do i do ㅠㅠ_ when Sunoo tried his aegyo on Kai for the first time.

He swallows, mouth dry. “I—I don’t know.”

(Kai does know. But can he do it?)

🦊🐧🦊🐧🦊🐧

After the call, Kai hugs one of his plushies to his chest and does the opposite of emptying his mind. He thinks of Sunoo—apple-cheeked smile, lips the color of peaches—and how he’s one of the first people to call him hyung in a while. Thinks of his laugh, light and sparkling like Sprite, bubbling in his ears. Thinks of how Sunoo had introduced himself so readily at the beginning of rehearsals, the maknae of the group yet no more uncertain because of it.

(He _really_ needs to stop thinking)

Kai sticks his head into his pillow and muffles a scream.

🦊🐧🦊🐧🦊🐧

The next morning, Kai summons up as much shamelessness as possible and corners Taehyun against the wall: a textbook-perfect kabedon.

“You could’ve just _told_ me what you were up to,” Kai says. “I’ve liked him for a while, now.” He’s sort of looming over Taehyun, their faces inches apart, but it’s pretty enjoyable. And Sunoo’s even _shorter_ than Taehyun, which makes him wonder—

Taehyun raises his eyebrows. “Where’s the fun in that?” he says, still maintaining his cool.

Kai blinks at him, speechless.

“Well,” Taehyun continues, patting Kai’s shoulder then gently shoving him out of the way, “I forfeit. Go get ‘em.”

🦊🐧🦊🐧🦊🐧

Kai’s going to be honest. He _still_ avoids Sunoo for the rest of the day. It's only at night, Kai sitting cross-legged on his bed while playing Cookie Run on his phone, that Sunoo manages to get him alone.

“Hyung,” Sunoo says, opening the door to Kai’s room slightly and peering in. “Can I come in?”

“Do you have more Pocky?” Kai asks, exiting out of his game. He’s not sure which response he’d prefer.

“I don’t think I’ll need it,” Sunoo replies, stepping inside and making his way over to the bed. He looks like he’s already won, by the virtue of sitting down next to Kai like this.

“Haha,” Kai laughs, a little nervous. He tries not to feel as if Sunoo’s smile has rendered him a little (read: a lot) dumber than usual.

“Seriously.” Sunoo reaches out to grasp Kai’s hand, for a moment, before moving to cup the side of his face. His eyes shine with excitement. “Are you going to be chicken about it, hyung?”

On the bed like this, their height difference is pretty much equalized. Sunoo meets his eyes readily, certain and confident in a way that Kai has always admired.

“Um.” Kai can feel the blood rushing to his cheeks as Sunoo’s gaze dips to his lips, then back up to his eyes. “I—no?”

When Sunoo kisses him, Kai’s mind goes blissfully blank ( _finally_ ) for a couple of moments. When he comes back to it, he’s hyper aware of every detail. Sunoo smells like lemonade and the material of his shirt is soft under Kai’s fingers. When he pulls away, hesitant and slow, his smile is bashful, mouth peach pink as always. It feels like it’s been a long time coming.

(To be honest, Kai’s been thinking about kissing Sunoo ever since the Pocky incident)

“Looks like we’re both winners now, huh?” Sunoo says, triumphant. His thumb smooths over Kai’s eyebrow gently.

“Yeah, we are,” Kai agrees, even if he now understands he had survived the game through Taehyun taking out most of the competition. Even if he thinks it’s a bit ridiculous, that it took a flirting fiasco of epic proportions to land them here.

Before he can say anything more, Sunoo leans in for another kiss.

It’s okay: they’ll have the time to talk it through later, say all the truths they’ve never voiced before. At least Kai, twenty years old and a little clueless about love, has made it this far.

**Author's Note:**

> still listening to cravity's break all the rules like a crazy person... sorry if this is bad + comments appreciated! 
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/storyboxed) // [cc](https://curiouscat.qa/axiomatic)


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